If there's one thing I don't understand about GOG, it's why they never advertise their website on YouTube via sponsorships. There are a ton of like-minded YouTubers that would be thrilled to work with GOG, but for some reason GOG refuses to do any marketing on this platform. All they would have to do is make a few quick promos for the website and they could easily reach millions of potential customers at a relatively low cost. Advertising works, so it seems like a no-brainer to me.

Can someone who works at GOG please explain why advertising on YouTube is such a low priority for them?

Well they used to, kinda... :-)

I have to admit, that was pretty hilarious ... but in a borderline cringy kind of way.

That would be a waste of GOG's money, because no one likes when people shill, and what you are asking for would be youtubers to shill for GOG. That will turn people off from GOG, not bring in new customers.

I do agree that GOG should try to advertise better and market more, if possible...but paid sponsorship shilling is not the right way to do it.

On the other hand, if GOG could convince some youtubers to promote them for free, on the basis of the youtuber(s)' genuine real interest in the principle of DRM-free, then that would be another matter entirely, and that would be something that is worth GOG pursuing. Someone needs to archive videos like this. Chances are, GOG will order videos like this to be deleted off of their official channel eventually since their flip-flopping into the dark side makes them look really bad in light of how their own videos call them out for their own future bad behavior (i.e. embracing the "regional pricing" scam).

I doubt that many Youtubers would be willing to do free sponsorships. They are a business just like any other, so most of them require payment for their services. Keep in mind that YouTube sponsorships are really not that expensive. It generally costs between $1000 to $10,000 per video (depending on the channel), which is relatively cheap for what you're getting. Sometimes you can get millions of views for each video, so it can often be well worth the cost. There's absolutely nothing wrong with supporting content creators in this way, since the deal would benefit GOG and the gaming community at the same time. This would be a quick and easy way for GOG to get some traffic, especially when it's marketed directly towards their key demographic.

Why shouldnt they market Cyberpunk and Witcher 3 with that money? It doesnt make any sense to promote GoG when your games are much more important. They have started to promote their Witcher 4 actually.

Maybe because sponsoring someone's channel means constant vigilance? Sponsors keep an eye on their assets to ensure they don't overstep and promote viewpoints not to their liking, or advocate behaviour contrary to their profit line.

In the past GOG has had problems keeping some of its own staff from screwing up online, let alone sanctioning a random social media personality with their logos. Not to mention that most youtube channels have a rather divisive commentary and tend to polarise their viewership (you'll get those who love that person, but equally those who hate them).

I dunno, sounds like more effort than what they'd want to go for with questionable returns.

From my undertanding YouTubers are more like Freelancers, nothing prevents them talking about Video games.
They work for Google, not for game industry.

Somekind of YouTuber Events like "Play with your favorite YouTuber" might work. I suggested it to Cyberpunk but CDPR didnt wanna go with it.

gmanlives and avalanche reviews have gog affiliate links that they promote in their reviews.

I think I recall LGR being sponsored by GOG at some point. May still be.

Here is the link for gmanlives page

https://www.gog.com/partner/Gmanlives?utm_campaign=adtraction&utm_medium=affiliate&utm_source=adtraction

They do, a lot of them, they also pay twitter accounts to tweet their stuff and go heavy on ad placement on youtube. You can easily find it if you look!

Don't forget MandaloreGaming.

i suppose OP was wondering why Markiplier and PewdiePie didn't have any gog affiliate links of their own.

there are some misconceptions here. sponsored YouTube videos are not affilated links, nor is it adverts.

For example, take a look at this video by RCE - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=doH3klBQ5HA. It is sponsored by Rise of Kingdoms. So RCE starts the video by introducing the game, then he spends 1 minute talking about the sponsor, then do the actual video content.

So sponsors pays the video creators to talk about their products within the video (usually at the start). a gOg sponsored video would therefore spend a minute or two talking about gOg.